| Naomi Alloway |
 Five years ago I had never danced one dance step in my entire life. I
feel incredibly grateful to have grown up in a musical family listening
to my parents make music in the living room with my Dad on the guitar
or harmonica and singing lead, my Mom chording and harmonizing on the
piano while my older sister played lead and harmony on the fiddle. My
twin has a clean/clear natural singing voice unrivaled by many and lent
herself well to the fray. So at about the age of four, after a small
amount of wheedling, my Dad made a tub bass for me to play along with.
Often the neighboring cattle and wheat rancher would show up with his electric steel guitar and the music would play all night long. Eventually I was fortunate to have a piano teacher that took me under her wing and taught me how to teach piano which, beginning at the age of 17, I did for a good number of years. So it seemed only inevitable that eventually the music and rhythms that roll around inside me would one day morph out through my feet and join the world of dance. And that’s what happened when I was invited to attend a country partner dance class being conducted by Dave Alloway in Oroville WA. I will never forget that first lap around the dance floor. It was a waltz and I remember saying to him, “this feels like magic, what’s happening here?” After a couple years, and ... ahem ... marrying the dance instructor… ;-)…, I soon began to observe that there was always more women that wanted to dance than there were men available, so I began to teach myself how to read line dance choreography and teach myself how to teach line dance. Even though a person can’t reasonably believe everything they see and read on the Internet, it has been an invaluable learning tool for me. By far I don’t know everything there is to know about dance, but I’m having the time of my life being on a constant quest to learn more and pass it on to my students as quickly as I possibly can. In the meantime, my focus remains Have Fun, Fake It and Get Outa the Way! |